governor dewine and the rona
today governor dewine hosted one of the covid conferences he does. i always watch if know about it – usually shows up in my twitter trending feed since i'm tagged as living in ohio.
unfortunately, covid is as bad in ohio as it ever has been.
https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1333504724461629440/photo/1
it's scary. remember when we all gasped when we heard the new york hospitals had to rent freezer trucks to store dead bodies because their mortuary was full? i never thought that could happen here, but that's now the reality.
while i've always been kinda irked that dewine is one of those gross anti-reproductive rights republicans (particularly because of the 6-week abortion law he passed) i'd thought he'd done okay to inform people about the current health crisis. he regularly insists “wear masks.” which is more than you can say about the sitting president.
but you know what he won't do? shut the state down or issue travel bans. he knows how infection works, surely, because he cites experts constantly? but a “no.” to shutting down schools and a “don't.” in regards to traveling? wouldn't count on it.
the reason, he says, he won't shut down the state is because of the rise in domestic and substance abuse as a result of staying indoors. these are serious issues. i recall voting yes just a month ago to pass a levy for funds to combat said rise.
naturally, because of his indecision and general pussy-footing about the health and safety of ohioans the state representatives have issued 12 articles of impeachment.
—reads why he's gonna be impeached—
oh. oh!
HOLY SHIT, HOLD UP. i... i just read what the republican party is trying to impeach him for. it's a fuckin' doozy.
- abuse of executive power
- meddling with the federal executive election
- closings, curfews, and mandatory mask orders for businesses
below is a quote from the local news.
Becker also claimed Ohioans find the mask mandate offensive and insulting while saying there is evidence masks can be a health hazard.
“Rather than hearing the cries of Ohioans, Gov. DeWine continues to stifle those cries by finding more inventive ways to use masks to muffle the voices of the people. He continues to have callous disregard for the fact that his isolation policies have led to a shockingly high number of suicides, alarming rates of drug abuse, persistently high unemployment, and the forced abandonment of the elderly by their loved ones,”
and this was his response —
“I'd like for them to go in and talk to some nurses, who are frontline nurses, who are dealing with people who are dying. I'd like for them to go talk to some family members – maybe a family that didn't believe that this could happen. Now at Christmas, there will be one less person at their table or more. So, at some point this foolishness has got to stop,”
i barely have words after reading this. i'm shocked. my head hurts from trying to twist their words into making sense. i cannot fathom being offended or insulted by a mask order, right now, with 63,000,000+ cases worldwide, 1,470,000+ of those people DEAD in current year. i simply cannot.
you know what i can fathom? i went back into my pocket archive and dug up an article dated 01/28/2020 – about how there's a coronavirus outbreak in china with an astounding 4,500+ cases and 100+ deaths, which was scary, because the two coronaviruses anybody remembers, MERS and SARS, had 10,500+ cases together.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-china.html
wear your mask. it's the least you can do; in fact, it's the bare minimum. fuck.